Where Do I Feed/Market My Products?

Guest blog entry from a proud parent, consultant to e-retailers and etail dtail reader:

Hello etaildtail community.  I am glad to share some thoughts with you on where to feed you product catalog data and what to do with it once you feed it to any shopping comparison engine.

Pretend to be your consumer when trying to make marketing decisions about your online business. Ask yourself:

1. Where would your consumers go online and what key words would they type in to search engines like MSN, Yahoo and Google or on search features on online storefronts, even if they are not looking to buy but just interested in browsing?

2. What are my consumer’s interests? 

3. What do my consumers do in their spare time?

As an example, I was speaking to an online merchant the other day who specializes in “baby products.” She wanted to feed her product catalog to a new comparison channel to feed in which there were no other baby products, i.e. she saw that she might have a competitive edge if a consumer came to this shopping comparison channel looking for baby products. Most importantly, she wanted consumers who came to this shopping comparison channel to be able to find her products and brand name easily when they entered a baby related product search.

Being a new father, and having new insights, knowledge and habits of an e-parent, I thought about where I go on the internet when I want to buy something baby related and what key words I type in to find products.  And believe me as a new father I am doing a lot of this as it is fun!

The thoughts that came to my head were the obvious “baby carriage, toys, clothes, stuffed animals”, and other pleasant thoughts. But, I could not get the visual out of my head about each time I get worried about the amount of spit-up or frequency of dirty diapers that my wife and I have had to deal with the past few months. This type of association in my mind, as consumer, is what is important.  Not only did I need to find those fun items associated with my new found father hood but I also wanted to type in key words associated with the more unpleasant side of being a new parent, namely: diapers, sick baby, baby wipes, baby care, infant illness etc…. 

Furthermore, when I did get to a site with baby products I always remember the advertisements on the storefront when looking up answers to my search questions/key words. Those adds were very effective as I will never forget that cute “Little Girl In the Oh-so-Precious Chinese Silk Dress” that just popped up in the side-bar of the online storefront while I was searching for items related to my babies hygiene. Not only would I remember the add and want to come back to it, but being a new father I often would click on this product I did not think we need and, of course, bought it!

The point I am trying to convey is two fold:

1. If you use any shopping comparison engine ensure that you optimize your feed to map all of the categories they have to the products you are trying to feed to them.  For instance, it would be a shame if you had some very cool baby toys that never showed up on the shopping comparison engine because you failed to map your “baby toys” their general “toy” category, and

2.Then think like your consumer thinks when they type in key words at a shopping comparison engine.  If you adjust the situation to your Products and channels you can see the Ingenious marketing Plan that I’m trying to relay through a personal story. Use keywords that you think your consumers would type, that do not necessarily relate to your products.

As an example, for “College Branded Shirts”, use sports keywords. And then put those keywords within the “indexed fields” such as “Product Name.” For “Tool Items” try using the NASCAR company, who sponsors your Manufacturers items, as a keyword in the “Product Name” field.

The bottom line is to not follow the heard. Think outside the box. If you live in the box, you may be lost in a saturated marketplace with the rest of your competitors.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. Use shopping comparison sites wisely…just sending a product feed may not work.

2. Think like a consumer thinks when they come to a shopping comparison site, i.e. what key words are they likely to type in to find your products?

3. Map products correctly to the shopping comparison engine’s categories so your products get listed in the proper area.

4. Include certain key words in the “Product Name” field to ensure that your product appears when a consumer does a key word search.

Thanks for the opportunity to share some insights, I hope they help.

BBernstein